Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a never-before-noticed component of our basic genetic material. The new discovery, made possible by high powered microscope, is a chromatin particle halfway between DNA and a nucleosome. Eventhough it looks like a nucleosome it is in fact a distinct particle of its own. This novel particle is a precursor to a nucleosome.
Till now we believed that chromatin, the natural state of DNA in the cell, is made up of nucleosomes and nucleosomes are the basic repeating unit of chromatin.
The new findings make it necessary to reconsider what chromatin is. The discovery of pre-nucleosomes suggests that much of chromatin, which has been generally presumed to consist only of nucleosomes, may in fact be a mixture of nucleosomes and pre-nucleosomes
The researchers say this discovery may be the beginning of a revolution in our understanding of what chromatin is.
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